The health of our democracy demands we consider treating Facebook, Google and Amazon with the

same firm hand that led government to wage war on 18 T IBM and Microsoft.

This show as well as my charity works are made possible by you, the listeners for details

on our current campaign. Visit us at bestofalif.com slash winter 17. Of course, there's also a big banner

right on our homepage and a link in the show notes on the device you're using right now.

So check that out. And now welcome to the award winning best of the left podcast with clips today

from on the media, we the podcast, the young Turks, the Ralph Nader radio hour and ideas from the CBC.

Facebook seems to be feeling the heat because on Thursday afternoon founder Mark Zuckerberg took to the

friendly precincts of Facebook live to assure us that change was a common. Maybe the most important

step we're taking is we're going to make political advertising more transparent. Not only will you have

to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser's page

and see the ads that they're currently running to any audience on Facebook. We will roll this out

over the coming months and we will work with others to create a new standard for transparency

and online political ads. Okay, Mark, this time we'll be watching you. What inspired Facebook's sudden

burst of sunlight? Why? Love of democracy, of course. Facebook's mission is all about giving people

a voice and bringing people closer together. Those are democratic values and we're proud of them.

I don't want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy. That's not what we stand for.

But this year in Silicon Valley, oligarchy seemed the operative word. I'm not referring just to

the Russian ad sales, but to the recent revelation that Twitter, Facebook and Google have all

allowed advertisers to use racist language in their ad targeting. And then there's the proliferation

of fake news and propaganda and the ongoing surrender of our privacy. What is to be done? Well,

according to Matt Stolar, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, it's not nibbling at the edges,

...